Cignal, Chery Tiggo open bids to make playoffs via backdoor
Cignal and Chery Tiggo are two proud franchises now mired in a group of young teams that will fight for dear life in the play-in tournament of the PVL All-Filipino Conference that starts on Thursday.
With sterling pasts and rosters made to win titles, the HD Spikers and Crossovers are both fancied to make it out of this stage and join six other teams in the quarterfinals, but first up for them are Capital1 and Nxled, respectively, as the single round phase starts at PhilSports Arena.
Cignal was relegated to here after taking a shock loss to Galleries Tower in the KO phase, while the Crossovers couldn’t pull off an upset of No. 5 Choco Mucho.
But despite those results, the two sides should not find much trouble in topping their respective groups and advance. Cignal leads Pool A which also has ZUS Coffee, while Chery Tiggo is the hands-down favorite in Pool B which also has Farm Fresh.
Vanie Gandler and setter Gel Cayuna will lead the HD Spikers, who finished third after classification despite being orphaned by Ria Meneses and Ces Molina at the end of last year.
It is that fight against adversity that was missing in Cignal when it played Galleries, sparking talk of tanking in order to gain a high pick in the next Rookie Draft which promises to be loaded.
The Crossovers, meanwhile, are also dealing with manpower issues after Eya Laure left the squad. But Chery Tiggo still has a lot to navigate this round safely with the seasoned Ara Galang, Aby Maraño and Ponggay Gaston.
Both pools will play a single round-robin series, with the top teams advancing to the quarterfinals, joining Creamline, Petro Gazz, Choco Mucho, PLDT, Akari and Galeries Tower. The Pool A winner will take on Petro Gazz, while the Pool B top finisher will battle powerhouse Creamline in a best-of-three quarterfinal showdown.
Meanwhile, Akari faces Galeries Tower, and Choco Mucho clashes with PLDT in the other quarterfinal matchups.
